Declutter your mind
Photo by That’s her business
Decluttering your mind is always a good idea, but after the whirlwind that has been this past year plus, it’s an extra great idea. With society finding a new sort of normal and reintegrating into outside life (What to even call this?). There is a lot of new going on. New ways of doing the old things. New, just because some things have been so long ago. And new like we’ve never encountered before. Which tend to stir up some monkey mind thoughts and worries on a loop. With so much happening at once and the monkey mind working overtime, we (my husband Jack and I) stumbled upon the lie cleanse, the next level. It’s basically decluttering your mind of all the lies that are stressing you out. It’s based on the lie check practice that we’ve been doing for years.
What is a lie check?
Jack and I often check each other and ourselves for lies. We watch our monkey ego minds (you know when your mind just starts spinning and looping those scary/ worrying/ negative thoughts) and check if there are lies present. We do this when one of us feels off or is simply down right crazy. You know what I mean. This helped our relationship and communication to go to a deeper, more loving, level. And helped us many a time to keep our sanity.
It’s based on the idea of the ego. We both love Eckhart Tolle, who writes about presence and what keeps us out of presence (presence=joy, peace, fulfillment, love, all of the good stuff), what keeps us out of the presence is the ego. In his definition ego is the unobserved mind and emotions that you have identified yourself with.
Ego is basically when you assume that the thoughts you think and the emotions you have are you and you take it as absolute truth, unquestioned. You sort of see it as a fact, without taking a look at it to check the validity and truth of it.
It’s also based on the idea that you are not a thought. The totality of you cannot possible be summed up in a thought. It cannot be the truth of who you are.
But they are convincing the monkey mind thoughts. Left unchallenged so long we’ve come to see them as reality.
The lie check in process
So in the beginning of us trying this out in our conversations, discussions and fights, we would say, could that be your ego? Or when we were in a fight simply: EGO. And we’d try to go: what are you thinking? And what do you feel? If we were too heated we’d try to take a time-out. We got better and better at fighting more fair this way.
So just to be clear I’ll give you one of mine. Often when I’m feeling a bit crazy this thought enters my mind: ”You’re not listening to me”. And it makes me feel very small, scared and unworthy. Unsafe. Not seen. I would share this and he’d be like that is not true, I heard everything you said. I always try to listen to you, cause you’re important to me. And I, in that state, would have trouble believing him. And he would be so surprised at that and he would try to convince me of hearing me, but I often couldn’t feel or believe it.
Honestly we have had this conversation many many MANY times. So many times that I realized, it’s not true, just my ego mind is so convinced it is. Huh. So I am being listened to, but my ego monkey mind won’t register it. I’m believing a lie.
After many repeat same ego thoughts and emotions coming up in our ego checks, I realised, this ego thing is always a lie. It would actually be good for us to call it a lie. To acknowledge what it really is. Cause we tend to take the things we’ve thought for so long to be true, without questioning it.
So we started questioning every thought that made us upset. And we named it a lie.
This we probably do on an almost daily practice now. It has just simply engrained itself in our daily life and the way we talk to each other. It’s been a life and relationship saver. Life can get messy and sometimes we make it more messy than necessary, this can clean it up a lot. Declutter your mind. Free up some space. Help you feel better. And connect better and deeper, with each other and yourself.
How to practice the lie check?
You can try this on yourself or find a WILLING partner to try this with. Cause poking at someone’s ego when willing is already a painful experience, without someone’s willingness is kinda like setting an emotional bomb off. The ego will come at ya! Please inform the person who you want to practice this with about the why and how! And if the person is totally on board go ahead.
Do know that finding your way with a partner can be a bumpy yet deeply bonding ride. Also bring compassion and kindness on the ride. It can be tender and emotional. It can also be deeply freeing. It can deepen connection with yourself and your partner in crime. It will release a lot of what’s been holding you back and free you up to be more truly you. And you will feel seen and heard, feel more fulfilled in your relationship.
You can also do this with yourself. I actually started out this way. I would keep looking at my thoughts. Looking at what came by and noticing patterns of thought. And I would say to myself: ego. That is the ego. It’s not who I am. It’s just a passing thought. Or what yoga teachers say, which I love, it’s just a cloud passing by. You are the one seeing the cloud, but you are not the cloud. You can’t grasp a cloud, (I tried, you can’t wrestle your thoughts to the ground, it turns out) you simply see it and let it pass by. It’s what clouds naturally do, they pass by.
The lie check steps
When you or someone else is upset and your ego monkey mind is running loose and rampant, you can try this out. If you’re starting out fresh, you might want to start with minor upsets. Just to start to get a feel for it and build the muscle for it.
Here are the simple steps for a lie check:
When upset, ask yourself or your partner: What is the lie? What thought is upsetting you? Answer honestly. (If you want you can also write it down.)
How do you feel? What emotions do you have? Name them.
Then center in your heart. Ask your heart: What is the truth? If you can’t quite connect to your heart in the moment: Imagine what you would say to an innocent child who’s thinking this. What would you tell this child what the truth is about this thought?
When both of you are upset, one by one go through all the steps.
I’m gonna give you an example with the thought I talked about:
Lie is: Jack’s not listening to me. He’s not seeing me or taking me seriously.
I feel small, ignored, hurt, sad, angry, alone and disconnected.
You can have multiple truths. E.g: I don’t know what he is thinking, I’m not a mind reader. Lets ask. Or: He is listening to me, like he often says. He loves me. He wants to see me. Or: I’m listening to me and see myself.
Some tips for the road ahead
It’s very very important during this exchange to not lash out because you’re upset and hurt. This sort of defeats the purpose as this is to deepen your connection and understanding with yourself and/or your partner. Even when you’re not new to this kind of communication, I can tell you from experience, it still is hard sometimes to not be reactive and want to lash out or react it out on the other person, or even yourself. Stay curious and observe yourself.
There is something in us when we feel hurt and small, that we want to defend ourselves and attack the person who happens to be around when we feel triggered. But before you might attack an innocent, this process is for you to check, hey why am I triggered right now. And before I unleash hell, is it even true?? Which spoiler alert, it kinda never is. But check and see for yourself.
The Eckhart Tolle rule of thumb to check whether you are triggered is to see if you react to something as if it has happened to you more than once. Cause if something happens or is being said or whatnot and you simply react as if this is the first time this happened to you, as in pretty neutral and/or compassionate to the persons upset, or you simply express your boundary or whatever your first time would look like, you did not carry past experiences into this present situation. I see it as being free in the moment to choose from all options of reactions and choices, without our past conditioning us to a set path, pattern, choice or reaction. When I’m really upset and triggered, I can tell you I’m reacting to it, not as the first time it happens, more likely as if it has happened hundreds of times before, if not more.
The lie cleanse, next level
So this is the next level we stumbled upon. So many new things and reintegrating had Jack's mind full of worry, this end of summer. He was anxious and overflowing with fear and worry of what is or isn’t and what will be. Let's just say it was a jungle in his mind. The ego monkey mind was on. So I started with the lie check and doing the steps. And I realised it wasn’t enough for this instance. Too many monkey mind thoughts were full on and convinced him of being true.
So I kindly (I hope) shouted give me all your f*cking lies. All of them, let's do a cleanse. And keep them rolling. So I asked: What’s the lie? And then What’s the truth? Our shorthand now is Lie?, Truth?. Which I repeated over and over until after 20 minutes or so he was empty of worry and lies. And full of truth. And ease and relieve. And he felt so so good and so much lighter and he said I don’t know what happened to me. It felt so real. That was such a release. So cleansing. And Jack kept saying you have to tell people about this, cause it helps so much! So I am telling you. I hope it helps you as it helps us.
In the weeks after we would repeat this. The lie cleanse is now a thing we do. It’s simply the lie check on repeat, until you feel empty and can’t think of any new lie. It’s very refreshing and uplifting.
WHY?
Since it is so hard. Why do my husband and I do it? We’re masochists. No, just kidding. Although maybe, cause this thing is hard, especially in the beginning, it does get easier with practice. Till you hit a new layer, is when the hard comes back at ya. Maybe what I’m saying is you get better at hard, and that makes it easier.
What do we get out of it that makes it worth it? We’ve built a kind of trust with each other that goes soul deep. Cause in the most challenging moments, time after time, we’ve seen each other choose not to act it out on each other. But to choose to take a moment and look at yourself when hurt. Which is such a vulnerable thing to do! So in our worst moments we’ve been not only kind to ourselves but also to each other. Of course we’ve slipped up, (expect yourself to too and forgive yourself), but most of the time we do, we choose love or help each other choose the loving option. And that’s a kind of trust that runs deep. When you can trust each other in the lowest moments. It deepened our connection in ways we didn’t know it would.
What we set out to do was to create a safe space for ourselves to be seen and heard. For fights to be fair and constructive. We had this intention to understand each other instead of fighting to be right. Which is so exhausting, isn’t it?! And when you want to be right you stop listening to each other. Basically I wanted a less exhausting way of communicating with each other. Less exhausting and more constructive and kind. So our intention is to understand each other. We don’t have to agree. Just see and hear each other. When necessary we find a compromise we both can feel good with. Don’t underestimate the impact of simply letting go of the need to be right. It makes space for both to be heard. Because instead of trying to convince each other of being right, you create space for both stories to be heard. I can’t tell you how great it feels to be truly seen and heard, it beats being right on any day. Try it and see for yourself.
The biggest joy of this conscious way of talking to each other is that you get to be yourself and you get to be seen, heard and understood, even in the messy moments. It is so freeing cause I know now whatever me Jack sees, it doesn’t matter whether it’s ugly or messy or pretty, he still will see the real me. Like I see the real him. It is freeing to show someone you can trust, all the parts and experiences of you, and still not scare them off.
And the best part of all this is when you practice this you will start to see yourself in this way. And that is probably the biggest freedom of all. No matter the good, the bad or the ugly that is happening to you and to still be able to see the real you. You will trust yourself. See yourself. Understand yourself. You will be free to be yourself, whoever you are in the moment.
You simply see yourself. And can stay yourself even if it gets uncomfortable, even in the messy hurt, you can be yourself. That is freedom, when the past doesn’t dictate your present anymore.
With love,
An-na
